Martha's tears fell faster, and a sound like a sob crept into Roger's rough voice.
"No use," Martha said brokenly; "the strike's done it at last. It's killed him—our baby Harry!"
"He's better off. He'll never know trouble again," said Mrs. Holdfast. "Don't you go and want him back again too much—both of you. He's out of it all now!"
"If I'd known! Why didn't somebody tell me?" demanded Stevens, hoarsely. "I'd have done—anything—if I'd known!"
Sobs came hard and thick from the father's heart. But no sounds of grief could bring back the household darling; no wailing could reach him on that distant shore which he had reached. He was "out of it all now," indeed! The better for little Harry!
So the strike was at an end; and Peter Pope, finding his services no longer required, betook himself elsewhere.
There were some who counted that the working-men of the place owed him much, seeing that by dint of the strike he had won for them an increase of seven and a half per cent. on their wages.
There were others who held that the same increase would have come, probably as soon, without the pressure exerted by the strike.
There were very many who found that the said increase of wages would by no means suffice to repay them for the heavy losses they had suffered through the strike.
There were not a few who maintained that the trade of the town, and its consequent prosperity, had received lasting injury from the strike.