This was an average criticism and not perhaps an unfair one. Men, however, did not as a rule talk much on the subject; they just quietly disappeared. Everyone knew it to be a most unexpected and unmerited calamity. They had done nothing to deserve it, they could do nothing to prevent it. Some felt that they were in the hands of Destiny; the large majority were patient and silent because they believed firmly that it was the Lord's doing and so was wonderful in their eyes. Some even said warmly it was time slavery was put down, and that millions could not be set free without somebody paying for it, and to be sure England's skirts were not clean, and she would hev to pay her share, no doubt of it. Upon the whole these poor, brave, blockaded men and women showed themselves at this time to be the stoutest and most self-reliant population in the world; and in their bare, denuded homes there were acted every day more living, loving, heroic stories than fiction or poetry ever dreamed of. So far the sufferers of Hatton had kept their troubles to themselves and had borne all their privations with that nobility which belongs to human beings in whom the elements are finely mixed.
John had suffered with them. His servants, men and women, had gradually been dismissed, until only a man and woman remained. Jane had at first de
murred and reminded John that servants must live, as well as spinners.
"True," answered John, "but servants can do many things beside the one thing they are hired to do. A spinner's hands can do nothing but spin. They are unfit for any other labor and are spoiled for spinning if they try it. Servants live in other people's houses. Nearly all of Hatton's spinners own, or partly own, their homes. In its seclusion they can bear with patience whatever they have to bear."
Throughout the past three years of trouble John had been the Greatheart of his people, and they loved and trusted him. They knew that he had mortgaged or sold all his estate in order to buy cotton and keep them at work. They knew that all other factories in the neighborhood had long been closed and that for the last four months Hatton had been running only half-time, and alas! John knew that his cotton was nearly gone and that peace appeared to be as far off as ever.
"You see, sir," said Greenwood, in a half-admiring and half-apologizing way, "both North and South are mostly of good English breed and they don't know when they are whipped."
One afternoon Mrs. Stephen Hatton called at the mill to see John. It was such a strange thing for her to do that he was almost frightened when he heard of it. Strengthening his heart for anything, he went to his private room to meet her, and
his anxiety was so evident that she said immediately in her cheerful comforting way,
"Nay, nay, my lad, there is nothing extra for thee to worry about. I only want thee to look after something in a hurry—it must be in a hurry, or I would not have come for thee."
"I know, mother. What is it?"