MASTERS AND MEN.
“Thought fights with thought; out springs a spark of truth
From the collision of the sword and shield.”
W. S. LANDOR.
“Margaret,” said her father, the next day, “we must return Mrs.
Thornton’s call. Your mother is not very well, and thinks she cannot
walk so far; but you and I will go this afternoon.”
As they went, Mr. Hale began about his wife’s health, with a kind of
veiled anxiety, which Margaret was glad to see awakened at last.
“Did you consult the doctor, Margaret? Did you send for him?”
“No, papa, you spoke of his coming to see me. Now I was well. But if I
only knew of some good doctor, I would go this afternoon, and ask him to
come, for I am sure mamma is seriously indisposed.”
She put the truth thus plainly and strongly because her father had so
completely shut his mind against the idea, when she had last named her
fears. But now the case was changed. He answered in a despondent tone:
“Do you think she has any hidden complaint? Do you think she is really
very ill? Has Dixon said anything? Oh, Margaret! I am haunted by the
fear that our coming to Milton has killed her. My poor Maria!”
“Oh, papa! don’t imagine such things,” said Margaret, shocked. “She is
not well, that is all. Many a one is not well for a time; and with good
advice gets better and stronger than ever.”
“But has Dixon said anything about her?”
“No! You know Dixon enjoys making a mystery out of trifles; and she has
been a little mysterious about mamma’s health, which has alarmed me
rather, that is all. Without any reason I dare say. You know, papa, you
said the other day I was getting fanciful.”
“I hope and trust you are. But don’t think of what I said then. I like
you to be fanciful about your mother’s health! Don’t be afraid of
telling me your fancies. I like to hear them, though I dare say, I spoke
as if I was annoyed. But we will ask Mrs. Thornton if she can tell us of
a good doctor. We won’t throw away our money on any but some one
first-rate. Stay, we turn up this street.”
The street did not look as if it could contain any house large enough
for Mrs. Thornton’s habitation. Her son’s presence never gave any
impression as to the kind of house he lived in; but, unconsciously,
Margaret had imagined that tall, massive, handsomely dressed Mrs.
Thornton must live in a house of the same character as herself. Now
Marlborough Street consisted of long rows of small houses, with a blank
wall here and there; at least that was all they could see from the point
at which they entered it.
“He told me he lived in Marlborough Street, I’m sure,” said Mr. Hale,
with a much perplexed air.
“Perhaps it is one of the economies he still practises, to live in a
very small house. But here are plenty of people about; let me ask.”
She accordingly inquired of a passer-by, and was informed that Mr.
Thornton lived close to the mill, and had the factory lodge-door pointed
out to her, at the end of the long dead wall they had noticed.
The lodge-door was like a common garden-door; on one side of it were
great closed gates for the ingress and egress of lorries and wagons. The
lodge-keeper admitted them into a great oblong yard, on one side of
which were offices for the transaction of business; on the opposite, an
immense many-windowed mill, whence proceeded the continual clank of
machinery and the long groaning roar of the steam-engine, enough to
deafen those who lived within the enclosure. Opposite to the wall, along
which the street ran, on one of the narrow sides of the oblong, was a
handsome stone-coped house,—blackened, to be sure, by the smoke, but
with paint, windows, and steps kept scrupulously clean. It was evidently
a house which had been built some fifty or sixty years. The stone
facings—the long, narrow windows, and the number of them—the flights
of steps up to the front door, ascending from either side, and guarded
by railing—all witnessed to its age. Margaret only wondered why people
who could afford to live in so good a house, and keep it in such perfect
order, did not prefer a much smaller dwelling in the country, or even
some suburb; not in the continual whirl and din of the factory. Her
unaccustomed ears could hardly catch her father’s voice, as they stood
on the steps awaiting the opening of the door. The yard, too, with the
great doors in the dead wall as a boundary, was but a dismal look-out
for the sitting-rooms of the house—as Margaret found when they had
mounted the old-fashioned stairs, and been ushered into the
drawing-room, the three windows of which went over the front door and
the room on the right-hand side of the entrance. There was no one in the
drawing-room. It seemed as though no one had been in it since the day
when the furniture was bagged up with as much care as if the house was
to be overwhelmed with lava, and discovered a thousand years hence. The
walls were pink and gold; the pattern on the carpet represented bunches
of flowers on a light ground, but it was carefully covered up in the
centre by a linen drugget, glazed and colourless. The window-curtains
were lace; each chair and sofa had its own particular veil of netting or
knitting. Great alabaster groups occupied every flat surface, safe from
dust under their glass shades. In the middle of the room, right under
the bagged-up chandelier, was a large circular table, with smartly-bound
books arranged at regular intervals round the circumference of its
polished surface, like gaily coloured spokes of a wheel. Everything
reflected light, nothing absorbed it. The whole room had a painfully
spotted, spangled, speckled look about it, which impressed Margaret so
unpleasantly that she was hardly conscious of the peculiar cleanliness
required to keep everything so white and pure in such an atmosphere, or
of the trouble that must be willingly expended to secure that effect of
icy, snowy discomfort. Wherever she looked there was evidence of care
and labour, but not care and labour to procure ease, to help on habits
of tranquil home employment; solely to ornament and then to preserve
ornament from dirt or destruction.
They had leisure to observe, and to speak to each other in low voices,
before Mrs. Thornton appeared. They were talking of what all the world
might hear; but it is a common effect of such a room as this to make
people speak low, as if unwilling to awaken the unused echoes.
At last Mrs. Thornton came in, rustling in handsome black silk, as was
her wont; her muslins and laces rivalling, not excelling, the pure
whiteness of the muslins and netting of the room. Margaret explained how
it was that her mother could not accompany them to return Mrs.
Thornton’s call; but in her anxiety not to bring back her father’s fears
too vividly, she gave but a bungling account, and left the impression on
Mrs. Thornton’s mind that Mrs. Hale’s was some temporary or fanciful
fine-ladyish indisposition, which might have been put aside had there
been a strong enough motive; or that if it was too severe to allow her
to come out that day, the call might have been deferred. Remembering,
too, the horses to her carriage, hired for her own visit to the Hales,
and how Fanny had been ordered to go by Mr. Thornton, in order to pay
every respect to them, Mrs. Thornton drew up slightly offended, and gave
Margaret no sympathy—indeed, hardly any credit for the statement of her
mother’s indisposition.
“How is Mr. Thornton?” asked Mr. Hale. “I was afraid he was not well,
from his hurried note yesterday.”
“My son is rarely ill; and when he is, he never speaks about it, or
makes it an excuse for not doing anything. He told me he could not get
leisure to read with you last night, sir. He regretted it, I am sure; he
values the hours spent with you.”
“I am sure they are equally agreeable to me,” said Mr. Hale. “It makes
me feel young again to see his enjoyment and appreciation of all that is
fine in classical literature.”
“I have no doubt that classics are very desirable for people who have
leisure. But I confess, it was against my judgment that my son renewed
his study of them. The time and place in which he lives, seem to me to
require all his energy and attention. Classics may do very well for men
who loiter away their lives in the country or in colleges; but Milton
men ought to have their thoughts and powers absorbed in the work of
to-day. At least, that is my opinion.” This last clause she gave out
with “the pride that apes humility.”
“But, surely, if the mind is too long directed to one object only, it
will get stiff and rigid, and unable to take in many interests,” said
Margaret.
“I do not quite understand what you mean by a mind getting stiff and
rigid. Nor do I admire those whirligig characters that are full of this
thing to-day, to be utterly forgetful of it in their new interest
to-morrow. Having many interests does not suit the life of a Milton
manufacturer. It is or ought to be enough for him to have one great
desire, and to bring all the purposes of his life to bear on the
fulfilment of that.”
“And that is—?” asked Mr. Hale.
Her sallow cheek flushed, and her eye lightened, as she answered:
“To hold and maintain a high, honourable place among the merchants of
his country—the men of his town. Such a place my son has earned for
himself. Go where you will—I don’t say in England only, but in
Europe—the name of John Thornton of Milton is known and respected
amongst all men of business. Of course, it is unknown in the fashionable
circles,” she continued scornfully. “Idle gentlemen and ladies are not
likely to know much of a Milton manufacturer, unless he gets into
parliament, or marries a lord’s daughter.”
Both Mr. Hale and Margaret had an uneasy, ludicrous consciousness that
they had never heard of this great name, until Mr. Bell had written them
word that Mr. Thornton would be a good friend to have in Milton. The
proud mother’s world was not their world of Harley street gentilities on
the one hand, or country clergymen and Hampshire squires on the other.
Margaret’s face, in spite of all her endeavours to keep it simply
listening in its expression, told the sensitive Mrs. Thornton this
feeling of hers.
“You think you never heard of this wonderful son of mine, Miss Hale. You
think I’m an old woman whose ideas are hounded by Milton, and whose own
crow is the whitest ever seen.”
“No,” said Margaret, with some spirit. “It may be true that I was
thinking I had hardly heard Mr. Thornton’s name before I came to Milton.
But since I have come here, I have heard enough to make me respect and
admire him, and to feel how much justice and truth there is in what you
have said of him.”
“Who spoke to you of him?” asked Mrs. Thornton, a little mollified, yet
jealous lest any one else’s words should not have done him full justice.
Margaret hesitated before she replied. She did not like this
authoritative questioning. Mr. Hale came in, as he thought, to the
rescue.
“It was what Mr. Thornton said himself, that made us know the kind of
man he was. Was it not, Margaret?”
Mrs. Thornton drew herself up, and said—
“My son is not the one to tell of his own doings. May I again ask you,
Miss Hale, from whose account you formed your favourable opinion of him?
A mother is curious and greedy of commendation of her children, you
know.”
Margaret replied, “It was as much from what Mr. Thornton withheld of
that which we had been told of his previous life by Mr. Bell,—it was
more that than what he said, that made us all feel what reason you have
to be proud of him.”
“Mr. Bell! What can he know of John? He, living a lazy life in a drowsy
college. But I’m obliged to you, Miss Hale. Many a missy young lady
would have shrunk from giving an old woman the pleasure of hearing that
her son was well spoken of.”
“Why?” asked Margaret, looking straight at Mrs. Thornton, in
bewilderment.
“Why! because I suppose they might have consciences that told them how
surely they were making the old mother into an advocate for them, in
case they had any plans on the son’s heart.”
She smiled a grim smile, for she had been pleased by Margaret’s
frankness; and perhaps she felt that she had been asking questions too
much as if she had a right to catechise. Margaret laughed outright at
the notion presented to her; laughed so merrily that it grated on Mrs.
Thornton’s ear, as if the words that called forth that laugh, must have
been utterly and entirely ludicrous.
Margaret stopped her merriment as soon as she saw Mrs. Thornton’s
annoyed look.
“I beg your pardon, madam. But I really am very much obliged to you for
exonerating me from making any plans on Mr. Thornton’s heart.”
“Young ladies have, before now,” said Mrs. Thornton, stiffly.
“I hope Miss Thornton is well,” put in Mr. Hale, desirous of changing
the current of the conversation.
“She is as well as she ever is. She is not strong,” replied Mrs.
Thornton, shortly.
“And Mr. Thornton? I suppose I may hope to see him on Thursday?”
“I cannot answer for my son’s engagements. There is some uncomfortable
work going on in the town; a threatening of a strike. If so, his
experience and judgment will make him much consulted by his friends. But
I should think he could come on Thursday. At any rate, I am sure he will
let you know if he cannot.”
“A strike!” asked Margaret. “What for? What are they going to strike
for?”
“For the mastership and ownership of other people’s property,” said Mrs.
Thornton, with a fierce snort. “That is what they always strike for. If
my son’s work-people strike, I will only say they are a pack of
ungrateful hounds. But I have no doubt they will.”
“They are wanting higher wages, I suppose?” asked Mr. Hale.
“That is the face of the thing. But the truth is, they want to be
masters, and make the masters into slaves on their own ground. They are
always trying at it; they always have it in their minds; and every five
or six years, there comes a struggle between masters and men. They’ll
find themselves mistaken this time, I fancy,—a little out of their
reckoning. If they turn out, they mayn’t find it so easy to go in again.
I believe, the masters have a thing or two in their heads which will
teach the men not to strike again in a hurry, if they try it this time.”
“Does it make the town very rough?” asked Margaret.
“Of course it does. But surely you are not a coward, are you? Milton is
not the place for cowards. I have known the time when I have had to
thread my way through a crowd of white, angry men, all swearing they
would have Makinson’s blood as soon as he ventured to show his nose out
of his factory; and he, knowing nothing of it, some one had to go and
tell him, or he was a dead man; and it needed to be a woman,—so I went.
And when I got in, I could not get out. It was as much as my life was
worth. So I went up to the roof, where there were stones piled ready to
drop on the heads of the crowd, if they tried to force the factory
doors. And I would have lifted those heavy stones, and dropped them with
as good an aim as the best man there, but that I fainted with the heat I
had gone through. If you live in Milton, you must learn to have a brave
heart, Miss Hale.”
“I would do my best,” said Margaret rather pale. “I do not know whether
I am brave or not till I am tried; but I am afraid I should be a
coward.”
“South country people are often frightened by what our Darkshire men and
women only call living and struggling. But when you’ve been ten years
among a people who are always owing their betters a grudge, and only
waiting for an opportunity to pay it off, you’ll know whether you are a
coward or not, take my word for it.”
Mr. Thornton came that evening to Mr. Hale’s. He was shown up into the
drawing-room, where Mr. Hale was reading aloud to his wife and daughter.
“I am come partly to bring you a note from my mother, and partly to
apologise for not keeping to my time yesterday. The note contains the
address you asked for; Dr. Donaldson.”
“Thank you!” said Margaret, hastily, holding out her hand to take the
note, for she did not wish her mother to hear that they had been making
any inquiry about a doctor. She was pleased that Mr. Thornton seemed
immediately to understand her feeling; he gave her the note without
another word of explanation.
Mr. Hale began to talk about the strike. Mr. Thornton’s face assumed a
likeness to his mother’s worst expression, which immediately repelled
the watching Margaret.
“Yes; the fools will have a strike. Let them. It suits us well enough.
But we gave them a chance. They think trade is flourishing as it was
last year. We see the storm on the horizon and draw in our sails. But
because we don’t explain our reasons, they won’t believe we’re acting
reasonably. We must give them line and letter for the way we choose to
spend or save our money. Henderson tried a dodge with his men, out at
Ashley, and failed. He rather wanted a strike; it would have suited his
book well enough. So, when the men came to ask for the five per cent.
they are claiming, he told ’em he’d think about it, and give them his
answer on the pay day; knowing all the while what his answer would be,
of course, but thinking he’d strengthen their conceit of their own way.
However, they were too deep for him, and heard something about the bad
prospects of trade. So in they came on the Friday, and drew back their
claim, and now he’s obliged to go on working. But we Milton masters have
to-day sent in our decision. We won’t advance a penny. We tell them we
may have to lower wages; but can’t afford to raise. So here we stand,
waiting for their next attack.”
“And what will that be?” asked Mr. Hale.
“I conjecture a simultaneous strike. You will see Milton without smoke
in a few days, I imagine, Miss Hale.”
“But why,” asked she, “could you not explain what good reason you had
for expecting a bad trade? I don’t know whether I use the right words,
but you will understand what I mean.”
“Do you give your servants reasons for your expenditure, or your economy
in the use of your own money? We, the owners of capital, have a right to
choose what we will do with it.”
“A human right,” said Margaret, very low.
“I beg your pardon, I did not hear what you said.”
“I would rather not repeat it,” said she; “it related to a feeling which
I do not think you would share.”
“Won’t you try me?” pleaded he; his thoughts suddenly bent upon learning
what she had said. She was displeased with his pertinacity, but did not
choose to affix too much importance to her words.
“I said you had a human right. I meant that there seemed no reason but
religious ones, why you should not do what you like with your own.”
“I know we differ in our religious opinions; but don’t you give me
credit for having some, though not the same as yours?”
He was speaking in a subdued voice, as if to her alone. She did not wish
to be so exclusively addressed. She replied out in her usual tone:
“I do not think that I have any occasion to consider your special
religious opinions in the affair. All I meant to say is, that there is
no human law to prevent the employers from utterly wasting or throwing
away all their money, if they choose; but that there are passages in the
Bible which would rather imply—to me at least—that they neglected
their duties as stewards if they did so. However, I know so little about
strikes and rate of wages, and capital, and labour, that I had better
not talk to a political economist like you.”
“Nay, the more reason,” said he eagerly. “I shall only be too glad to
explain to you all that may seem anomalous or mysterious to a stranger;
especially at a time like this, when our doings are sure to be canvassed
by every scribbler who can hold a pen.”
“Thank you,” she answered, coldly. “Of course, I shall apply to my
father in the first instance for any information he can give me, if I
get puzzled with living here amongst this strange society.”
“You think it strange. Why?”
“I don’t know—I suppose because, on the very face of it, I see two
classes dependent on each other in every possible way, yet each
evidently regarding the interests of the other as opposed to their own:
I never lived in a place before where there were two sets of people
always running each other down.”
“Who have you heard running the masters down? I don’t ask who you have
heard abusing the men; for I see you persist in misunderstanding what I
said the other day. But who have you heard abusing the masters?”
Margaret reddened; then smiled as she said,
“I am not fond of being catechised. I refuse to answer your question.
Besides, it has nothing to do with the fact. You must take my word for
it, that I have heard some people, or, it may be, only some one of the
workpeople speak as though it were the interest of the employers to keep
them from acquiring money—that it would make them too independent if
they had a sum in the savings’ bank.”
“I dare say it was that man Higgins who told you all this,” said Mrs.
Hale. Mr. Thornton did not appear to hear what Margaret evidently did
not wish him to know. But he caught it nevertheless.
“I heard, moreover, that it was considered to the advantage of the
masters to have ignorant workmen—not hedge-lawyers, as Captain Lennox
used to call those men in his company who questioned and would know the
reason for every order.”
This latter part of her sentence she addressed rather to her father than
to Mr. Thornton. Who is Captain Lennox? asked Mr. Thornton of himself,
with a strange kind of displeasure, that prevented him for the moment
from replying to her! Her father took up the conversation.
“You never were fond of schools, Margaret, or you would have seen and
known before this how much is being done for education in Milton.”
“No!” she said, with sudden meekness. “I know I do not care enough about
schools. But the knowledge and the ignorance of which I was speaking did
not relate to reading and writing,—the teaching or information one can
give to a child. I am sure, that what was meant was ignorance of the
wisdom that shall guide men and women. I hardly know what that is. But
he—that is my informant—spoke as if the masters would like their hands
to be merely tall, large children—living in the present moment—with a
blind unreasoning kind of obedience.”
“In short, Miss Hale, it is very evident that your informant found a
pretty ready listener to all the slander he chose to utter against the
masters,” said Mr. Thornton, in an offended tone.
Margaret did not reply. She was displeased at the personal character Mr.
Thornton affixed to what she had said.
Mr. Hale spoke next:
“I must confess that, although I have not become so intimately
acquainted with any workmen as Margaret has, I am very much struck by
the antagonism between the employer and the employed, on the very
surface of things. I even gather this impression from what you yourself
have from time to time said.”
Mr. Thornton paused awhile before he spoke. Margaret had just left the
room, and he was vexed at the state of feeling between himself and her.
However, the little annoyance, by making him cooler and more thoughtful,
gave a greater dignity to what he said:
“My theory is, that my interests are identical with those of my
workpeople, and vice-versa. Miss Hale, I know, does not like to hear men
called ‘hands,’ so I won’t use that word, though it comes most readily
to my lips as the technical term, whose origin, whatever it was, dates
before my time. On some future day—in some millennium—in Utopia, this
unity may be brought into practice—just as I can fancy a republic the
most perfect form of government.”
“We will read Plato’s Republic as soon as we have finished Homer.”
“Well, in the Platonic year, it may fall out that we are all—men,
women, and children—fit for a republic; but give me a constitutional
monarchy in our present state of morals and intelligence. In our infancy
we require a wise despotism to govern us. Indeed, long past infancy,
children and young people are the happiest under the unfailing laws of a
discreet firm authority. I agree with Miss Hale so far as to consider
our people in the condition of children, while I deny that we, the
masters, have anything to do with the making or keeping them so. I
maintain that despotism is the best kind of government for them; so that
in the hours in which I come in contact with them I must necessarily be
an autocrat. I will use my best discretion—from no humbug or
philanthropic feeling, of which we have had rather too much in the
North—to make wise laws and come to just decisions in the conduct of my
business—laws and decisions which work for my own good in the first
instance—for theirs in the second; but I will neither be forced to give
my reasons, nor flinch from what I have once declared to be my
resolution. Let them turn out! I shall suffer as well as they: but in
the end they will find I have not bated nor altered one jot.”
Margaret had re-entered the room and was sitting at her work; but she
did not speak. Mr. Hale answered—
“I dare say I am talking in great ignorance; but from the little I know,
I should say that the masses were already passing rapidly into the
troublesome stage which intervenes between childhood and manhood, in the
life of the multitude as well as that of the individual. Now, the error
which many parents commit in the treatment of the individual at this
time is, insisting on the same unreasoning obedience as when all he had
to do in the way of duty was, to obey the simple laws of ‘Come when
you’re called,’ and ‘Do as you’re bid!’ But a wise parent humours the
desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser
when his absolute rule shall cease. If I get wrong in my reasoning,
recollect, it is you who adopted the analogy.”
“Very lately,” said Margaret, “I heard a story of what happened in
Nuremberg only three or four years ago. A rich man there lived alone in
one of the immense mansions which were formerly both dwellings and
warehouses. It was reported that he had a child, but no one knew of it
for certain. For forty years this rumour kept rising and falling—never
utterly dying away. After his death it was found to be true. He had a
son—an overgrown man, with the unexercised intellect of a child, whom
he had kept up in that strange way, in order to save him from temptation
and error. But, of course, when this great old child was turned loose in
the world, every bad counsellor had power over him. He did not know good
from evil. His father had made the blunder of bringing him up in
ignorance and taking it for innocence; and after fourteen months of
riotous living, the city authorities had to take charge of him, in order
to save him from starvation. He could not even use words effectively
enough to be a successful beggar.”
“I used the comparison (suggested by Miss Hale) of the position of the
master to that of a parent, so I ought not to complain of your turning
the simile into a weapon against me. But, Mr. Hale, when you were
setting up a wise parent as a model for us, you said he humoured his
children in their desire for independent action. Now certainly, the time
is not come for the hands to have any independent action during business
hours; I hardly know what you would mean by it then. And I say, that the
masters would be trenching on the independence of their hands, in a way
that I, for one, should not feel justified in doing, if we interfered
too much with the life they lead out of the mills. Because they labour
ten hours a-day for us, I do not see that we have any right to impose
leading-strings upon them for the rest of their time. I value my own
independence so highly that I can fancy no degradation greater than that
of having another man perpetually directing and advising and lecturing
me, or even planning too closely in any way about my actions. He might
be the wisest of men or the most powerful—I should equally rebel and
resent his interference. I imagine this is a stronger feeling in the
North of England than in the South.”
“I beg your pardon, but is not that because there has been none of the
equality of friendship between the adviser and advised classes? Because
every man has had to stand in an unchristian and isolated position,
apart from and jealous of his brother-man: constantly afraid of his
rights being trenched upon?”
“I only state the fact. I am sorry to say, I have an appointment at
eight o’clock, and I must just take facts as I find them to-night,
without trying to account for them; which, indeed, would make no
difference in determining how to act as things stand—the facts must be
granted.”
“But,” said Margaret in a low voice, “it seems to me that it makes all
the difference in the world—.” Her father made a sign to her to be
silent, and allow Mr. Thornton to finish what he had to say. He was
already standing up and preparing to go.
“You must grant me this one point. Given a strong feeling of
independence in every Darkshire man, have I any right to obtrude my
views, of the manner in which he shall act, upon another (hating it as
I should do most vehemently myself), merely because he has labour to
sell and I capital to buy?”
“Not in the least,” said Margaret, determined to say just this one
thing; “not in the least because of your labour and capital positions,
whatever they are, but because you are a man, dealing with a set of men
over whom you have, whether you reject the use of it or not, immense
power, just because your lives and your welfare are so constantly and
intimately interwoven. God has made us so that we must be mutually
dependent. We may ignore our own dependence, or refuse to acknowledge
that others depend upon us in more respects than the payment of weekly
wages; but the thing must be, nevertheless. Neither you nor any other
master can help yourselves. The most proudly independent man depends on
those around him for their insensible influence on his character—his
life. And the most isolated of all your Darkshire Egos has dependants
clinging to him on all sides; he cannot shake them off, any more than
the great rock he resembles can shake off—”
“Pray don’t go into similes, Margaret; you have led us off once
already,” said her father, smiling, yet uneasy at the thought that they
were detaining Mr. Thornton against his will, which was a mistake; for
he rather liked it, as long as Margaret would talk, although what she
said only irritated him.
“Just tell me, Miss Hale, are you yourself ever influenced—no, that is
not a fair way of putting it;—but if you are ever conscious of being
influenced by others, and not by circumstances, have those others been
working directly or indirectly? Have they been labouring to exhort, to
enjoin, to act rightly for the sake of example, or have they been
simple, true men, taking up their duty, and doing it unflinchingly,
without a thought of how their actions were to make this man
industrious, that man saving? Why, if I were a workman, I should be
twenty times more impressed by the knowledge that my master was honest,
punctual, quick, resolute in all his doings (and hands are keener spies
even than valets), than by any amount of interference, however kindly
meant, with my ways of going on out of work-hours. I do not choose to
think too closely on what I am myself; but, I believe, I rely on the
straightforward honesty of my hands, and the open nature of their
opposition, in contra-distinction to the way in which the turn-out will
be managed in some mills, just because they know I scorn to take a
single dishonourable advantage, or do an underhand thing myself. It goes
farther than a whole course of lectures on ‘Honesty is the Best
Policy’—life diluted into words. No, no! What the master is, that will
the men be, without over-much taking thought on his part.”
“That is a great admission,” said Margaret, laughing. “When I see men
violent and obstinate, in pursuit of their rights, I may safely infer
that the master is the same; that he is a little ignorant of that spirit
which suffereth long, and is kind, and seeketh not her own.”
“You are just like all strangers who don’t understand the working of our
system, Miss Hale,” said he, hastily. “You suppose that our men are
puppets of dough, ready to be moulded into any amiable form we please.
You forget we have only to do with them for less than a third of their
lives; and you seem not to perceive that the duties of a manufacturer
are far larger and wider than those merely of an employer of labour: we
have a wide commercial character to maintain, which makes us into the
great pioneers of civilisation.”
“It strikes me,” said Mr. Hale, smiling, “that you might pioneer a
little at home. They are a rough, heathenish set of fellows, these
Milton men of yours.”
“They are that,” replied Mr. Thornton. “Rose-water surgery won’t do for
them. Cromwell would have made a capital mill-owner, Miss Hale. I wish
we had him to put down this strike for us.”
“Cromwell is no hero of mine,” she said, coldly. “But I am trying to
reconcile your admiration of despotism with your respect for other men’s
independence of character.”
He reddened at her tone. “I choose to be the unquestioned and
irresponsible master of my hands, during the hours they labour for me.
But those hours past, our relation ceases; and then comes in the same
respect for their independence that I myself exact.”
He did not speak again for a minute, he was too much vexed. But he shook
it off, and bade Mr. and Mrs. Hale good night. Then, drawing near to
Margaret, he said in a lower voice—
“I spoke hastily to you once this evening, and I am afraid, rather
rudely. But you know I am but an uncouth Milton manufacturer; will you
forgive me?”
“Certainly,” said she, smiling up in his face, the expression of which
was somewhat anxious and oppressed, and hardly cleared away as he met
her sweet sunny countenance, out of which all the north-wind effect of
their discussion had entirely vanished. But she did not put out her hand
to him, and again he felt the omission, and set it down to pride.