“Don’t be talking that way, Michael,” she said, “let you get up and take the gentleman along to where he wants to go.”
“I will not,” said the driver, “I’d do it if I could but I won’t have it said that I was the one to break the strike.”
It was very much to the credit of Sir James that he recognised the correctness of the engine driver’s position. It is not pleasant to be held up twenty-four hours in the middle of a bog. It is most unpleasant to be kept away from church on one’s own wedding day. But Sir James knew that strikes are sacred things, far more sacred than weddings. He hastened to agree with the engine driver.
“I know you can’t go on,” he said, “nothing would induce me to ask you such a thing. But perhaps—-”
The woman at the washtub did not reverence strikes or understand the labour movement. She spoke abruptly.
“Have sense the two of you,” she said, “What’s to hinder you taking the gentleman into Dunadea, Michael?”
“It’s what I can’t do nor won’t,” said her husband.
“I’m not asking you to,” said Sir James. “I understand strikes thoroughly and I know you can’t do it. All I came here for was to ask you to tell me where I could find a telegraph office.”
“There’s no telegraphic office nearer than Dunadea,” said the engine driver, “and that’s seven miles along the railway and maybe nine if you go round by road.”
Sir James looked out at the rain. It was thick and persistent. A strong west wind swept it in sheets across the bog. He was a man of strong will and great intellectual power; but he doubted if he could walk even seven miles along the sleepers of a railway line against half a gale of wind, wearing on his feet a pair of patent leather boots bought for a wedding.