"Why here, particularly?" asked Arthur, drawing figures with the key on the wooden gate, and apparently immersed in thought.
"Because the people here are too badly off," burst forth the Manager. "Don't be angry, Herr Arthur, if I tell you so to your face. It is just the truth. I can't complain myself, I have always had more than my deserts, because your late mother was very fond of my wife--but the others! They toil and trouble day after day, and yet they can scarcely get bare necessaries for their wives and children. God knows they earn their bread hardly, but we must all of us work, and most of them would do it willingly enough, if they could only get their rights, as on the other works. But here they are pressed and harried for every farthing of their miserable wages, and the mines below are in such a state, that each man says his prayers before going down, because he keeps thinking that the whole concern will fall down some day and crush him. But there is never any money for repairs, and when a poor fellow gets into difficulties and distress, no money can ever be found to help him with either, and all the time they have to look on while thousands upon thousands are sent up to the city, in order that"----
The old man stopped suddenly, and clapped his hand over his indiscreet mouth in mortal fear. He had gone on speaking in such a zealous haste, that he had completely forgotten who it was that stood before him. The hot flush which rose to the young man's face at his last words, brought him back to a consciousness of what he was saying.
"Well?" asked Arthur, as he paused. "Go on. Hartmann, you see I am listening."
"God bless me!" stammered the old man, in sad confusion. "I did not mean that, I had quite forgotten"----
"Who spent the thousands? You need not make any apologies, Hartmann, but speak out like a man what you were going to say to me. Or perhaps you think I shall carry tales to my father?"
"No," said the Manager, heartily. "That you certainly won't do. You are not like your father, such an imprudent word as that to him would have lost me my place. Well, I was only going to say that all this makes bad blood with the hands. Herr Arthur"--he stepped up nearer, with a look of half-timid, half-trusting appeal, "if you would but take some interest in these things! You are Herr Berkow's son, and you will inherit all one of these days. No one has so much concern in it as you."
"I?" said Arthur, with a bitterness which happily escaped his unpractised hearer. "I understand nothing of your customs or of what is necessary here on the works. It is, and always has been, all quite strange to me."
The old man shook his head sorrowfully.
"Lord Almighty! what is there so much to understand? You need not study all about machinery and the shafts for that. You only need to look at the people and listen to them, as you are listening to me now. But nobody will do that. If a man complains, he is sent away, and then they say it is for insubordination; when a poor miner is dismissed on that score he finds it hard to get another place. Herr Arthur, I tell you, it is a crying shame, and that is what Ulric can't endure to see; it eats his heart out, and, though I am always talking and preaching against his notions, in point of fact he is right. Things can't go on in this way, only the means he would use to bring about a change are godless and sinful. They would bring him into trouble, and the others with him. Herr Arthur,"--the salt tears stood in the Manager's eyes as, without any hesitation now, he seized the young man's hand, still resting on the gate,--"for God's sake, I implore you, don't let matters go on like this. It can be good for no one, not even for Herr Berkow. There are troubles and disputes now on all the works around, but when once they break out with us, the Lord have mercy on us, for there will be awful work!"