CHAPTER III.

THE STRIKE BEGUN.

"THERE!" said Roger Stevens, setting down his bag of tools, with the air of a man who has done a noble deed, and is aware of the same.

Martha's lips parted, then closed fast. She stood looking without a word.

"Nobody'll dare say now that we're to be trodden on like reptiles," continued Stevens loftily.

"Who ever did say it?" asked Martha.

"Well, Pope said they might; and they won't be able now."

"Then the strike's begun, and it's all up!" faltered the wife.

"All up! It's all just begun! There's thousands out to-day, and there 'll be a thousand more to-morrow. The masters won't stand that long. We'll make our own terms. We'll be the masters now!!"

"Mr. Pope says so, I s'pose," murmured Martha.

"And good reason he has to say it too. I tell you, he knows what he's about. 'Tain't often you come across a cleverer chap than Pope."

"I wish he'd kept himself and his cleverness away! I've a notion he wouldn't be so ready for the strike, if it was he that had to lose his living by it."

"Well, I never did in all my life see a woman like you—not a bit of spirit!" declared Stevens. "One 'ud think you cared for nothing in the world but food and drink."

"Why, it's food and drink you're striking for now, isn't it? Drink 'specially, and tobacco," said Martha; with tart truth. "Leastways, it's more money to get your drink and tobacco with."

"No, it isn't," returned Roger loudly. "It's because a rise is our due! It's for public spirit, and to show we won't be trampled on. That's what it's for. There's a lot of men gone out to-day who haven't got no particular grievances, and they're just striking for the principle of the thing—just for to help us."

"They'd be a deal wiser if they stayed in for the principle of the thing," said Martha.

"You've not got a spark of spirit in you," grumbled Roger. "Look at Mrs. Hicks! She don't hold her husband back. She's been pushing him on, and encouraging him from the first to act like a man."

"Mrs. Hicks may, but Mrs. Holdfast don't; and I'd a deal sooner be like Mrs. Holdfast."

Roger flung away impatiently out of the house; and Martha walked to the open door.

A busy street met her gaze,—busy, that is to say, as regarded the amount of moving life, not as regarded actual employment. The road was filled with scattered groups of working-men in their working-dress; some of whom wore looks of depression and anxiety, though the prevailing sensation seemed to be of triumph.

For the Strike was begun!

The masters could not long hold out. Success, speedy success, in the shape of higher wages and shorter hours, might be confidently expected. So Peter Pope declared. Capital could not but fail in a tussle with labour; for what was capital without labour? Peter Pope forgot to ask the equally forcible question—What was labour without capital? It is so easy to say, What is a man's head without his body?—But then one naturally inquires next, What is a man's body without his head? Unless the two work in harmony, both come to grief; and a wrong done by the one to the other always recoils upon itself. This is not more true of the joint existence, a man's head and body, than of that other joint existence, Labour and Capital.

Still, Peter Pope said things were all right; and who should know better than Peter Pope?

Those among the strikers who were members of a Trades Union felt comfortably sure of a certain amount of help, to carry them through the fight.

The larger proportion, who were not members of any such Union, indulged in vague hopes of being somehow or other tided through.

For the strikers belonged to more trades than one in the town; some having gone out, as Stevens implied, "on principle," or in sympathy with the rest.

Peter Pope was not far off. Martha could see him at a little distance, haranguing a group of listeners. She turned away with a sigh, and found Sarah Holdfast by her side.

"Stevens is one of them, I suppose," Mrs. Holdfast said kindly.

Martha tried to speak, and her voice was choked.

"Come, I'll go indoors for a minute. Baby is asleep, and Bessie's such a steady little lass, I may leave them just for a bit."

Martha was glad to get out of sight of that exultant crowd, looking to her foreboding sight so like a flock of thoughtless sheep, frisking to the slaughter. Peter Pope's illustration had not been inapt.

"How well the children do look, all of them!" said Mrs. Holdfast. "Just see Bobbie's cheeks! And I'm sure Baby Harry is a beauty. Hasn't he fat arms?"

"And how long are they going to keep fat, I wonder?" asked Martha.

Mrs. Holdfast hardly knew what to say. She stroked the head of little three years-old Harry, as he nestled up to his mother. Martha took such a pride in her children. They had hitherto rivalled Mrs. Holdfast's in healthy freshness.

"I'd work my fingers to the bone, if I could, to keep 'em as they are now," said Martha. "But whatever am I to do? I can't leave 'em alone all day, and go out to charing. I'm sure it's little enough work my husband does at the best of times; and now he's ready to risk starving us all, just that he may stick up for his 'rights' as he calls it. Rights indeed! It makes me sick to hear 'em all a-talking of their rights," cried Martha, with sudden energy, as she hugged little Harry in her arms. "A man's wife and children has a right to expect he'll give them food to eat, and clothes to wear; and if he won't do that, he'd no business to marry."

"Men are easy led to believe whatever they're told—provided it's one of themselves that tells them," said Mrs. Holdfast shrewdly.

"I don't see as that's any excuse. They'd ought to have sense to think for themselves."

"So they would, if they was all like my John," said Mrs. Holdfast, with pardonable pride. "But there's where it is. He reads and learns, while other folks talk."

Martha found no comfort in the thought of John Holdfast's superiority.

"See here—" she said, looking round—"all the little comforts we've been getting together, when we could spare a sixpence or a shilling. And they'll all go now. I won't say but what Roger's been a good husband in the main, letting alone that he's so easy led. He does care for the children, and he brings home his wages more regular than most—if he wasn't so fond of a day's holiday, when he ought to be at work. Talk of short hours! He's never in no danger of overdoing hisself. But that's the way with the men. I wonder whatever 'd happen if we women was to strike for short hours, and knock off work, and leave things to take care of themselves."

Mrs. Holdfast shook her head dubiously. She saw that it was a relief to Martha to pour out.

"I'm sure I've toiled day and night for him and children, and never wanted to complain. Roger has had a clean home, and his clothes mended, and his Sunday dinners as good as the best of them. And I'd just begun to think of laying by something against a rainy day. And here's the end of it all."

"Maybe the strike won't last long."

"Don't tell me that! You don't think so. Get a wrong notion into a man's head, and he'll stick to it like beeswax. They're made up of selfishness, down to their shoes; and that's what it is! And Roger like the rest! As if four days of work in the week wasn't little enough for a great strong man like him—and I'm sure it's seldom he does more. As if he couldn't put up patiently with less wages and more work for a while, sooner than see his wife and children starve before his eyes."

"You're talking a lot of nonsense! Like a woman," said Stevens, standing in the doorway. "You don't know nothing about the matter, and that's a fact! It's our rights that's got to be considered, Pope says. We're striking for our rights!"

"I don't care for nobody's rights nor for Mr. Pope neither, so as I've bread to put in the children's mouths," sobbed Martha. "Do you think I don't know what you're bringing us to? I hope I am talking like a woman! I wouldn't wish to do anything else. I wouldn't wish to talk like the men—a set of lazy creatures, with never a thought except for their own comfort."

Stevens walked off, and Martha looked up pitifully.

"There now! I'm wrong! I know I'm wrong—speaking like that to him before the children. But it's hard to be patient. Your husband's at work still, ain't he?"

"He's at work, and he'll be at work as long as ever he can. If many more go out in the town, the works may have to stop for want of men to keep them going. But John 'll only stop if he's obliged. He won't go out with the rest."

"They won't like that," said Martha.

"Maybe not," Mrs. Holdfast said quietly. "He's had a warning already."

"A warning from the strikers!" Martha's eyes grew round. She wondered at Mrs. Holdfast's composure.

"Yes; but he says he don't see that one sort of tyranny is better than another. If he's a freeborn Englishman, he's got a right to work as long as he will, and the others haven't power to forbid him. That's what John says."

Martha sighed. "They haven't no right," she said. "But as for power—if I was you, I should be all in a fright for him."

"It's no manner of use expecting troubles till they come," said Mrs. Holdfast.

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