CHAPTER IX.

A COLD EVENING.

IT was a Sunday evening, and bitterly cold. A hard frost had come to aggravate the misery which already reigned in the town.

Martha Stevens cowered over a scanty fire, with her shivering children. Harry had wailed himself to sleep in his little bed; but Millie and Bobbie were up still, clinging to their mother's faded dress.

"I wonder what father's doing," patient Millie said. She did not utter the first words which rose to her lips—"I wonder if father 'll bring us anything to eat." Millie was unusually thoughtful for her few years, and would not say needlessly what would distress "mother."

"I don't know. There isn't much here to tempt him," sighed Martha.

The door opened slowly. "I say—may I come in, Mrs. Stevens?" asked a voice.

A ragged slatternly figure, carrying a baby, entered and drew towards the fire-place. It was their near neighbour, Mrs. Hicks.

"You can sit down," said Martha; "only shut the door first. The wind's bitter cold. Do you want anything?"

"That's a nice question, ain't it?" said Mrs. Hicks, acting on the leave given. "Do I want—anything? O no; we're all so flush o' cash just now, we don't want nothing, do we? Not you, nor me, nor nobody!"

Martha made no answer. She felt too listless and despairing for neighbourly talk. Molly Hicks gazed round the little room with hungry eyes.

"Maybe you've not got to such a pass as we," she said. "Maybe you haven't a crust to spare!"

[Illustration: "Maybe you haven't a crust to spare!" she said.]

"It wouldn't be on the shelf long if I had," Martha said in a hard tone.

"Ah—then I'm come to the wrong place," said Molly. "Look here, Mrs. Stevens!"

She held out a wan baby, with claw-like fingers and wizened face—a face that might have belonged to some old man.

"And Jack 'll stand seeing that! And he'll stand knowing that the child's being killed! It'll die soon! And I tell him so! And he won't believe, till it's too late! If ever I go and work him up again to this sort of thing, I'll—"

Molly caught her breath in a sob. But for her "working up," as she rightly termed it, her husband might never have joined the strike. He was a man slow to decide, difficult to move; but when once he had decided on some new course of action, he was equally resolute in holding, to it. Molly had given the impulse. She could not now undo her own work.

"How long does your husband s'pose it'll last?" asked Mrs. Hicks, after a pause.

"I don't know. Nobody don't know," said Martha wearily. "Till the masters give in, or till the men see they've no hope of getting their way. And they don't seem like to see that, so long as Mr. Pope goes on talking at them."

"I wish Pope was at the bottom of the sea. That's what I wish," said Mrs. Hicks, slowly rising.

Martha's drooping manner and empty cupboard did not tempt her to a longer stay. Wrapping the baby in her torn shawl, she went out again.

"Mother, how dreadful bad Mrs. Hicks' baby does look," said Bobbie.

Martha could not speak. She could only think how changed were the faces of her own children—of little Harry especially. Bobbie's mind seemed to go in the same direction.

"And Millie's got such thin arms; and baby don't laugh as he used, and all the red's gone out of his checks. I wish I was a man; I'd go off to the works, and get a lot of money."

"It'll be long enough before you're a man, Bobbie," sighed his mother. "Years and years first. And when you are, I suppose you'll just be like the rest,—do what everybody else does, and never think about the little ones at home."

"Don't father think?"

Martha put a sudden check upon herself.

"Yes, he does," she said. "He does think; and it goes to his heart to see baby Harry's look. I didn't mean that, Bobbie; I only meant, I wish with all my heart the strike was over."

"Look 'ee here, Mrs. Holdfast!"

Molly Hicks once more held out her baby, and Sarah Holdfast's kind face softened with pity.

"Poor little thing! Why, she's wasted away to nothing!"

"Starving!" said Mrs. Hicks, in a dry unnatural voice.

"Poor little thing!" repeated Mrs. Holdfast.

"There's nothing for anybody at home. And we've parted with pretty near everything. The house is just left bare. They've helped us at the shops, till they say they can't go on no longer. I don't know how it'll all end. I've got nobody to help me, nor nobody to turn to."

Molly Hicks sat down on the doorstep of the Holdfasts' cottage, and rocked the baby to and fro. It set up a faint whimper, as if in response, but seemed too weak to cry.

"Don't stay there. You'll give the child its death of cold. Come in, and you shall have a cup of tea," said Sarah, "and some milk for baby."

Mrs. Hicks obeyed the invitation with alacrity.

Tea-things were still on the table, for Mrs. Holdfast had delayed for once putting them away until the children were in bed. She was glad now of Bessie's unwonted sleepiness. A little boiling water added to the remains of tea in the tea-pot, soon produced a very drinkable cup; and Molly disposed of it eagerly. A big slice of bread and butter awaited her also; but she turned from it, to soak scraps of dry bread in a saucer of milk, and to squeeze them between the tiny creature's parched lips. Sarah looked on with tearful eyes.

"There! Not too fast," she said. "Take something yourself now."

"I don't know how to thank you enough, that I don't," said Molly Hicks at length, when her wants and those of the baby seemed both satisfied. "I haven't had such a meal for days. It's not a bit of good to say one word to my husband. He won't listen. If he'd a grain of sense, he'd be back at work—now work's to be had. But he won't. He's as obstinate—!"

"One man's afraid to stir without the rest stirring too," said Sarah.

"Then he'd ought to think of his children, and put his fears in his pocket," said Molly.

"You didn't think like that in the beginning of the strike," Sarah ventured to say.

"No, I didn't—more fool I!" said Molly. "Talking a lot of rubbish, and getting him to go along with the rest, when he wouldn't have done it but for me! O yes, he'd hear me then; but he won't hear me now. I just wish I'd bitten off my tongue first! You don't look as if you'd come to the end of everything yet, Mrs. Holdfast."

"No," said Sarah quietly. "It isn't John's fault he can't work; and he's been helped."

"He ain't at work yet."

"His arm isn't well enough. It's been business—longer than we thought. The doctor says he'll have to rest it yet awhile."

"Everybody knows how that came about," said Molly.

Sarah was silent.

"Some folks do say it was an accident. But everybody knows. It was the men—because your husband wouldn't join 'em."

"Maybe," Sarah said in constrained tones. "Well——all we can do is to—"

"Have the law out of 'em! But you can't!" said Molly.

"No. We can't; for John doesn't know who it was. Any way, we've got to forgive them."

"That ain't so easy," said Molly, with a short laugh, hanging over the fire. "Where's your husband now?"

"Gone to church."

"Catch my husband putting his foot inside of a church door," said Molly.

"Then he loses a lot of happiness," said Mrs. Holdfast. "John and me can't go together, because of the children; but he mostly manages for me to go once, and he does like to go twice, as often as not. I've been this afternoon; and he's been morning and evening. We wouldn't give it up—no, not for anything."

"Why, what's the good?" asked Molly, opening her eyes.

"I think the good is, because it's right—first," said Mrs. Holdfast. "And if we go in a right spirit, it brings us nearer to God. And we go to worship Him, and to learn about Him. You just try, Mrs. Hicks; you'll soon feel you couldn't do without it."

"I!" said Mrs. Hicks. "In this gown! And it's the only one I've got."

"I'd sooner go in a work-a-day gown than not at all," said Sarah. "Maybe it would be hard. But I'm quite sure I couldn't stay away. I don't know how I'd ever bear trouble when it comes, if I hadn't such a Friend to turn to, and to ask to help me."

"A friend! Do you mean Mr. Hughes?"

"No; I didn't mean Mr. Hughes, though he's been a real good friend and no mistake," said Mrs. Holdfast. "I meant One above—One who's a Friend to all that call up on Him. I wouldn't stay away from His House, when I've a chance to go—no, not for anything you could mention. And John, he feels the same, Mrs. Hicks."

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